Wireline Launching ICO For Open Source Developers

Wireline, the cloud application marketplace and serverless architecture platform, is creating an open source developer fund. The fund will be supported from an upcoming initial coin offering (ICO).

The company specializes in so-called enterprise microservices – from design through to deployment and managements. A key element of the platform is its App Exchange, a marketplace that brings together microservices from across the web. The App Exchange connects apps and professional services with enterprises seeking to build sophisticated solutions from multiple open source vendors. With the new fund, open source developers may be able to get traction and eventually a larger share of enterprise IT budgets.

“Currently open source projects are underfunded and developers aren’t motivated to build new applications because maintaining them is a thankless task,” says Wireline CEO Lucas Geiger. “We want to change that by creating an ecosystem that rewards developers, and helps enterprises gain leverage from the extended open source community. We’re excited to open the application process, see the ideas and support the talented people building the next generation of cloud apps.”

Wireline is currently holding a token sale to fund platform development, as well as provide funds for the Wireline Developer Fund. 80% of the funds raised will go directly to the Wireline Developer Fund. As a result, Wireline anticipates committing US $100,000 to approximately 30 projects. Winning projects will be paid in Wireline tokens, bitcoin and cash, and will be publicly visible on the ethereum blockchain using the WRL Token.

“Critical to the ongoing success of open source projects is developers having a financial stake in the platform,” says Geiger. “Using cryptocurrency as the currency of the marketplace is a way for us to ensure that developers receive benefits for holding tokens. For example, through the evaluation process WRL token-holders will be able to ask questions and comment on the proposals to signal the relative quality and value of an applicant’s services. This, in turn, will support the longer-term sustainability of the ecosystem we’re developing.”

BLOCK TRIBUNE: What will the Wireline tokens be used for? Will they be exchange-traded?

LUCAS GEIGER: Wireline (WRL) tokens will be used as the currency of our cloud application marketplace, facilitating payments from cloud consumers to cloud developers. In addition, WRL tokens will also be awarded to developers building software that will support wireless architecture cloud and blockchain ecosystems. Tokens will be locked for trading until the platform is generally available in Q2 2018, we will announce the trading partners later this month.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: What is the payout timeline for Wireline tokens to prospective developers? Is it all delivered with completion of a working prototype?

LUCAS GEIGER: The Wireline Development Fund (WDF) will encourage the development of foundational components, through a transparent RFP process. During the procurement process all bids from applicants will be public. The Wireline community will be encouraged in participating in the value of the applicant’s proposal through the Wireline portal and Github. There are largely two types of project the Wireline Development Fund (WDF) will fund: 1) ongoing research, where the grants are paid out by milestones the developer defined 2) marketplace components, where the grant is partly paid upon delivery of working prototype and the remainder with a demonstration of the component in production.

All bids will then be evaluated by the WDF committee and payments to fund the winning projects will be publicly visible on the ethereum blockchain, using the WRL Token.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: Will any deals mandate that it be exclusive to AppExchange? What kind of royalty there? Is it in perpetuity?

LUCAS GEIGER: App developers wholly own the intellectual property, and there is no requirement that it be used on the Wireline App Exchange. In fact the WDF will fund critical protocols and low-level components that are fundamental to the cloud. App developers will be free to set their own pricing, whether that’s freemium, pay-per-usage, volume discounts, support-tiers or whatever they choose. Wireline receives revenue from service marketplace fees for procurement and service offerings.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: What is the structure of the token sale? Who gets what, and when?

LUCAS GEIGER: The token launch will happen before the end of the year, with 100% of the 3 billion WRL tokens minted and no further tokens created. The WDF is seeking to raise $20m for the development of the Wireline.io platform, with the remainder of funds being destined to the developers.

Reserve Wireline WRL tokens will be held by the Wireline Developer Fund and will be governed by a scheduled release of 2.5% per quarter. Those funds are exclusively destined to developer evangelism, open-source software grants and ecosystem development by the Wireline Developer Community.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: What qualifies as a micro-service?

LUCAS GEIGER: Microservice is the new paradigm for designing scalable apps. A microservice is essentially an isolated component of a cloud system that can be integrated with other microservices to create a more sophisticated system. Compared to monolithic apps, a microservice architecture is more resilient and extensible. The opportunity with microservices, is that they can be reused in many apps. Over time, we will see a range of large and small micro-services become available in the marketplace, with the most successful being used again and again.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: Will there be any marketing or biz dev efforts on the part of Wireline for the products it develops?

LUCAS GEIGER: As with all corporate sales, there will be some marketing and business development work required. Wireline Inc’s business model is to source compute time and resell the compute time with the value-added services and applications to business users. The co-founding team have been working with large enterprises to move their IT onto the cloud for a number of years now and these contacts will be the buyers of Wireline products in the future.

BLOCK TRIBUNE: Things can go wrong despite everyone’s best intentions. What is the process if one of the developers defaults?

LUCAS GEIGER: If a developer is funded for a project, the WDF will ensure that the payouts are attached to the delivery of milestones: prototype and production deployment.